#gm tips

[saja-star]

I am obsessed with this idea

[sonofdysonsphere]

The key to being a good GM in tabletop rpgs is to listen to the same song on repeat and slowly going insane while thinking about a scene you are planning that your players might avoid entirely.

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

So, my Cyberpunk game just got very interesting. The netrunner opened the Faraday cage that was stopping a hostile AI from hacking him.

So now he's at -7 Humanity, the rest of the group has EMP'd his ass unconscious, put him in a medically induced coma, and removed all his cyberware in the attempt to stop the AI from taking over his brain. They are committed to tying him to the bed and therapy-ing his ass until he's human again.

Clearly, however, there needs to be some kind of long term effects of an AI trying to download itself into your brain as part of an escape plan to break out of the corporate blacksite where it was held prisoner. So he's gonna have his own Johnny Silverhand, except it's a horrible Digital Elder God instead of Keanu, and asking it for help will deal Humanity damage. Dropping to 0 HP or Humanity will let it start driving the body.

I'll have to pass him notes to have the AI talk to him, so to keep the rest of the group unsure about what is up, I will pass out notes to everyone that say things like:

You notice nothing out of the ordinary

Laugh and refuse to let anyone see the note and I'll give you 10 IP.

You are not the doppelganger.

This note is very long to make everyone paranoid. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum

Your butt itches

[blankd]

DM/GMing Tips

(aka what I learned with my campaign which ran for about 4 years, totaling 131 sessions, so I must have been doing something right)

*these tips are NOT exclusive to DnD, more than one of these is bound to help in running a TTRPG, if you have a specific question, feel free to hit up my askbox

Session 0 is important for setting expectations for everyone involved as well as establishing your safety tools if desired (every table is different).

The game's story is not exhaustively penned by the GM but by the players who will tell the story after the session sends. If you want to tell a specific story, you'll be more fulfilled writing a book.

Have a start and an idea of what the end could be, the rest will be sorted in play. (If you're using a module, read ahead and make notes that are useful for yourself.)

The job of the GM is to put the players in Situations or Throw a Grenade.

Hooks are opt-in and more passive, "I heard there's a dragon", Situations/Grenades are direct and require player input immediately, "there is a dragon attacking RIGHT NOW". There are pros/cons to both, use them to create tempo and tension.

The moment you ask the players what they want to do, the proverbial pen is in their hands. NEVER take away a Player's agency. If logic/mechanics would make that action impossible, present it as such, and let the consequences play out where applicable.

Reward curiosity, if a player asks a question, have an answer, even if it's just flavor. You're also only human, if you need time for the answer, give what relevant info you have in the moment and give a more detailed follow up later if it needs ones. (This is a skill, don't feel bad if you start off with more blanks than answers.)

Provide in-game feedback for actions players take. Not everything needs to have far-reaching repercussions but there should be some kind of cause-and-effect to make the world and the beings living in it feel reactive.

NPCs should have an immediate, but simple purpose and an additional aspect to give them a little meat. If the players take interest in that NPC, you can build them out further through conversation. This will become easier as you get a grip on improv.

Have a list of names or a randomizer if you find you're at a loss for NPC creation.

Have an idea toybox. Players don't know NPCs or encounters they never meet, if they 'miss it' you can turn it into an opportunity to meet them later. There is no science to it, but you'll get a feel for what can be repurposed or upcycled, sometimes that change in context makes them more memorable. Sensibility creates believability, exceptions create curiosity. A 'missed' merchant ending up displaced in a weird location can expand into a better hook than simply being found in a bazaar.

Player cleverness and diplomacy should be rewarded, if they say something convincing, roll with it the best you can. However never forget that the more important/powerful an NPC, the stronger their convictions. Certain NPCs should be beyond convincing and it's up to you to convey that.

Don't forget the spirit of the game! RP can get pretty intense, but at the end of the day this is about COLLABORATIVE imagination and expression. Make the best memories you can.

[plaid-dm]

[sgt-cookie-2]

DM Tips:

Make your NPCs multidimensional by giving them interests and skills outside of the context the PCs give them. The cute barista who flirts with one of the PCs as they get morning coffee? Beetle expert. And guess what the next plot coupon is and what they need to decipher it! Give the local blacksmith a keen interest in runic iconography! Not only does it allow you to do a cool sidequest regarding some runic blacksmithing magic but it also explains why he knows so much about ancient Dwarven script despite being human!

Give the gritty cyberpunk bar some flair by giving the bartender in your cyberpunk dystopia a minor PhD in robotics engineering because all of his auto-bartending gizmos are salvaged junk and the fact that they work at all is a testemant to the skill of the engineer who keeps them running and the grace of fucking god. But, hey, if the android PC should ever get shot the fuck up and they need some emergency, black-market repairs? Well... they know a guy.

And the reason for this, of course, as we all well know, came about for one specific reason: So we have to remember fewer voices. Deepening the value of the world the PCs inhabit was a side-effect.

[galilleon]

Hey all, This is my first Tumblr post ever! I'm pretty new here, but I'm hoping to share some DM techniques, tools and tips and to make some new friends as well! Feel free to send a chat request (an ask[?]) if you're interested!

With that aside, on with the post!

Better and More Meaningful Random Encounters!

Random encounters are a staple of DnD, they are expected to be there during exploration as a way to make the world feel alive, to have it have an aura of adventure and danger, to eat up party resources and put pressure on the PCs to make interesting and important choices, and also as a way for a DM to reasonably 'stall' the party with a quick and easy situation.

Usually, it ends up something like this:

There's just one problem with most random encounter tables though, it's so easy for them to be GOSHDARN BORING! Especially for a newer DM.

Making them interesting becomes gambled improv on the DM's part if they're not used to it, and it's hard to keep track of the important factors that need to be kept in mind

Luckily, I ended up finding a great source for random encounters from 'Dungeon Masterpiece' on YouTube, and I integrated it into my own DMing. I figured that I'd share it here for any that want to work it into their own sessions as well!

After adjustment, a single table can account for multiple entire sessions of in-depth worldbuilding and fun without getting dull!

Sources:

Source 1 (Creating interesting Random Encounter Tables):

Source 2 (Making Random Encounters reflect your Worldbuilding):

There's 4 major methods we can use to improve the Random Encounter table

1. Make the table a straight 1dx roll.

2. Adding 'depth'.

3. Adding meaningful encounters.

4. Prerolling and/or Multirolling.

You can also check out the "Where to Start?" section for some direction to make getting it down and prepped all easy peasy!

1. Straight Roll:

Its enticing to go for 2d6 or the such in order to add non-linearity to the rolls, but these sorts of adjustments only end up making one or two encounters extremely likely and leave all others in the dust, it often ends up defeating it's own purpose of interesting randomness.

In the previous example, it was extremely likely to only get Wolves, Barbarians, Orcs, or Spiders, from a table of 12! A straight roll would serve us much better. The rare rolls are already rare enough as is!

Simply enough, adjusting the original example by replacing the 2d6 with 1d12, it'd become something more like this:

#2. Adding Depth:

We can add more columns in the encounter tables. These columns will represent different aspects about the encounters that we can roll on separately!

Usually it can be difficult as a DM to naturally come up with motives for the encounters, showcase the worldbuilding and have it all come together.

This setup can give you a solid guideline on how the creatures/people think (if any), and also sets up the overall area so that you get an idea of what events tend to occur there as a result of its occupants. 

We want to add 3 more columns to the tables to convey different aspects of the encounter. Fill in these new columns corresponding to the expectations of each encounter.

We'll roll each of these and combine them, then we'll interpret them to make a robust, in-depth random encounter with truly unexpected results!

I recommend rolling alot of complete encounters at once and interpreting the context to the vast general area the party is travelling in.

i. Behaviour: How the creatures act. Are they friendly, scared, aggressive, curious, mischievous?

ii. Complication: Something behind the scenes in the encounter. Do they have sick young? Broken equipment? Are they starving?

iii. Significant Impact: This is a tick box, and will only be present under ONE of the rows. It will be rolled like the other columns, but ONLY once. It signifies which encounter is the Significant Encounter

The Significant Encounter will have its encounter's presence prominent amongst all the other random encounters in the area. There could be burn marks and carcasses from a rampant dragon, or a goblin raid leaving tracks moving through the area. Which is the most impactful of the different encounters?

Adding this to our previous example would expand it to:

Rolling this would give us things like:

Significant encounter: Owlbears

Note that the significant impact shows that the Owlbears are a massive problem in the area. Perhaps the Owlbears are agitated for an unknown reason, and are unnecessarily aggressive.

The significance of Owlbears gives us context to the second one as well! Perhaps the hunters raided an Owlbear den, and adopted an Owlbear cub from there as well.

There could be uneaten carcasses, ravaged trees, less wildlife, etc around these parts.

Note how much sheer CONTEXT these columns add to our encounters. It's invaluable!

3. Adding Meaningful Encounters

Usually random encounters tend to be rather mundane and very one-note.

There's usually some general wildlife and monsters, different disparate factions without any rhyme or reason, and maybe a general non-combat encounter or two, but these don't really tell us about the area or its surroundings at all by themselves.

Instead, we can add in wildlife and monster encounters specific to the biome, non-combat encounters, and encounters of nearby factions and/or settlements to the table, and we can even add environmental encounters in there as well.

Note that we're not tied down to 12 encounters, and can expand it ad infinitum according to our need of diversity in our encounters.

Just add in specification and connection, and suddenly the dominos all fall into place.

Lastly, we'll also be adding in 'DOUBLE TIME' which will let us roll on everything twice, and make it so it's a double encounter!

Thus, the table can instead be adjusted to:

Note how each and everything has its relation in one way or another, but through the sheer variance, they remain truly random and novel.

4. Prerolling and/or Multirolling

Lastly and this is just something that I do, but that I found gamechanging. Be sure to pre-roll 5-7 encounters for each session, for the general area the players are going to be headed in.

Note that you don't need to really prep anything at all, just interpret all of them on a surface level as a buffer.

Also note that you don't need to use all of them if they're not needed. The foreshadowing and signs are worldbuilding and having secrets that the players don't unravel is just as useful as the ones that they do, perhaps even moreso. It adds depth and detail beyond the scope of what the party will encounter

It simply let's you get an idea of the connections between encounters, allows for foreshadowing, and acts as a deterrent to getting caught off guard.

Even if you roll mid-session, I recommend calling for a 5 minute break, rolling 5-7 encounters at the same time and interpreting them and their connections before resuming the session.

It WILL make a difference, trust me

Where to start?

It can be difficult getting inspiration or direction to get started in creating these random encounters, and sometimes you don't want to go through the hassle of thinking them up from nothing

For some great conceptual headstarts and examples for these tables, you can check out 'Worlds Without Number' and it's:

- Page 205 (Great general templates for encounters differentiated by broad creature types such as Beasts and Monsters, Sapient Monsters, and Humans)

- Pages 206-219 (For inspired locations to occasionally run rare encounters or groups of encounters in. This works best with flexible/discovered worldbuilding given the significance of some of these, and you also want to add these in sparingly to keep them significant)

- Pages 246-247 (These pages have great templates for the kinds of encounters and situation to be included in the tables, and it can be expanded vastly, and certain options can be selectively and repeatedly chosen to meet our needs. Mood works well as a complication.)

There might be other pages that are useful as well for these sorts of random encounters in the wilderness that I haven't come across yet. If so, give them a shout out and I'll be sure to add them in. It's worth checking it out in its entirety for some great tips!

Conclusion

Again, credit goes to Dungeon Masterpiece and Worlds Without Number for excellent adjustments. This has been quite long, but I hope you stuck around till the end.

Many a session have been made easy but complex ever since this was introduced and I hope that this helps you out as much as it helped me in my prep and improv!

Feel free to give any advice in formatting on Tumblr, or any feedback on the post itself. It really means a lot to me, thanks!

[madfishmonger]

I was just remembering when I used to run a Vampire: The Masquerade Sabbat LARP. The game has a lot of downtime, NPC contacts, and other ways of gaining information in between games built right in, but depending on the current plot I didn't always have anything to share with every single player, but I didn't want to single out the people getting the useful info, so I would give notes that said things like "Have a nice day" or "stare at the Storyteller in horror" or "cackle maniacally when you read this". Sometimes it was nonsense that they were free to interpret or ignore. Loads of fun.